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Mid-Year Checkup: Avoiding Excuses and Rationalizations
A mid-year checkup for a business can bring value to your clients that other reviews and analysis can miss. There’s also an opportunity to get completely off track in the review – more so than in monthly or even quarterly ones. Don’t do that…do this instead.
Creating Your Mid-Year Review Blueprint
The midway point in any business cycle is a great time to evaluate, assess and adjust based on how things are going. Figuring out how things are going, though, isn’t as straightforward as it may seem. A solid mid-year review blueprint can help.
Using Your Professional Intuition with Your Business
Learning to trust your professional intuition with your clients is one thing. Learning to trust it in your own business can be quite another. Here are 3 areas to start using your professional intution in your own business.
Using Your Professional Intuition with Your Clients
You need more than numbers, data and metrics to guide your clients as they make forward-looking decisions. You need professional intution.
When Profit Personalities Conflict
What do you do if your profit personality as a CFO conflicts with your client’s profit personality? Don’t panic…and follow these tips instead.
What is Your Client’s Profit Personality?
We have identified three types of profit personalities: visionary, tactical and reactive. Here’s how to know which one is the predominant type for your client.
What To Do When Your Client Blames You for Poor Results
As the reporter of the financial results, you (as the fractional CFO) can also be seen as being the bearer of bad news. Here’s how to address your clients’ frustrations without getting defensive.
Barriers to Business Growth
Some companies are too good at embracing change, reveling in risk and obsessing over innovation. It is possible to overcorrect to keep out complacency. Here’s why that matters.
When The Budget Isn’t Working
It can be disappointing if there are budget misses. After all, a decent amount of time and effort went into developing the budget. Don’t let frustration win. Do these things instead to get that business budget back on track.
The Art & Science of Budgeting
A common mistake we see CPAs, CFOs and businesses all make is falling into the trap that budgeting is a 100% scientific exercise. It’s not and here’s why.
Optimizing Profits Through Budgeting
Your clients need a budget to maximize their profits - even if they don’t think so. Here’s how you can help them do it.
Strengthen Your Client’s Business Foundation
Navigating major economic cycles and business-specific ones is as much art as it is science. Now is an ideal time to demonstrate your resourcefulness and focus on your clients’ success by helping them build or strengthen their business foundation.
Focusing on the Right Metrics
It can be difficult to know which metrics to focus on when trying to measure the success of a business. There are so many KPIs and metrics out there, it's hard to keep track of them all and figure out what they mean for your clients. This post will serve as a guide to help you understand how different metrics work together and why they matter, so you can help your clients make better decisions about where to allocate resources and time.
Do You Know Your Numbers?
Knowing your numbers is a vital component to building a successful and profitable business. When you have a clear understanding of your revenue, profit margin, and other important metrics, you are able to make better decisions.
Know Your Why
Your “Why” draws an emotional connection between your business and everyone else in your company’s circle. This includes your customers, your employees, and your outside partners.
Cash Flow + Your Business
In business, cash "flows" in both directions. It flows IN to your business from customers or clients who are buying your products or services. It flows OUT of your business for expenditures, such as rent, loan payments, taxes, business supplies, and payroll. The difference between the INs and OUTs is net cash flow...and it can be positive or negative.
Barriers to Business Growth
Business ownership is often like a roller coaster ride. While we all want our companies to be on a nonstop journey upward, the reality is that there are usually a series of highs and lows along the way. Every entrepreneur or business owner understands what it’s like to reach a plateau or be in a slump, and then strive for the next great breakthrough.